Over the past month or so, I've spent a lot of time playing Sanctum Sprint, making an effort on my own part to see how fast I can finish the race. In that time, I've witnessed a lot of something that I've seen happen in the other activities - people don't stick around. Over the course of one match, the room might fill up to have ten or more people participating. Once the match finishes though, everybody evacuates, save for perhaps a couple people. This is clearly from people coming in just to get their daily requirement. If people do stay at the end of a match, I typically won't see them play more than three or four matches in a row.

This leads me to believe that many people don't see value in playing activities (referring for now only to those within the daily rotation). When people see value in something, they invest into it, either with their time or their money. There's no way to invest money into activities, so if people think playing an activity is worthwhile, they'll spend their time playing it. It would seem then that the only value that most people can find in playing activities is to get the easy participation award for their dailies, because again, they come in for one match, it ends and gives them their daily, and then they leave. If there were no daily requirement for doing activities, such as during previous achievement systems where doing things in Keg Brawl would only sometimes show up, then very few people would end up playing them at all. Any regulars to Keg Brawl back in the day would have noticed this as well.

It's not to say that activities have no value to people outside of their daily achievement, but perhaps they don't have enough value. If time is the only means to invest into activities, then there must be other things which are a better use of their time. Or, perhaps some people have so little time to spare that they feel compelled to do other things that are more time-sensitive, such as anything time-gated. In the first place, what makes activities such a poor use of people's time? Is the demand for coin and karma so great that the paltry participation rewards aren't good enough? Are the games just not fun somehow? Is the problem not with the activities being un-fun or worthless, but instead with heavy pressure being placed on doing other things in the game over some span of time?

I'd like to hear what people here think of activities and why they themselves or others don't spend more time with them. Specifics on each activity are okay, but I'm really looking for an answer on the general scope. I could give my own spiel on why I think Sanctum Sprint isn't drawing in a bigger or better crowd, but that's a topic for another time.

I actually like Keg Brawl, not wild about Sanctum Sprint in particular I guess it's just okay.

To answer your question though, time. The game as it is now with checklist wars means that in any given day I feel strongly encouraged to:

-complete the daily/monthly
-run fractal 49 at the bare minimum but usually 38 too
-craft items that have a reset if needed, check supplies
-run the faster dungeon paths if there are enough guildies around
OR
-run world event train using the timer if there aren't

That's quite a bit to soak in and all of them have a once-per-day aspect associated to them which is honestly soul crushing. Activities as fun as they may be just don't have that sense of urgency even when there is a rotation. The time spent there always feels like it could and should be spent elsewhere.

The activities are always filled up, and even the less popular ones by number (Key Brawl, Crab Toss), always have a game ready. Activities are really for a niche audience, but they're always filled up.

and costume brawl is just hilariously bad in GW2, like, they completely ruined it and that makes me mad.

Snowball fights as well... they just want to desecrate everything related to GW1 I guess.

None of these take any real skill or thought. I mastered sanctum sprint and ended up just quitting indefinitely after the billionth rage whisper because I always got first place.. once you are in first place and put the equivalent of mario kart bananas on the track you cannot possibly lose unless you majorly screw up.

Just pure shit. ANet has lost all sense of competitive gameplay and replaced it with frustrating and half-assed mechanics.

I haven't even tried keg brawl yet, but I'm 90% sure it's just as bad as the rest. The others were so bad I am afraid I'll just get even more disappointment and I've enough of that in this game as it is.

The crab game is just horrible. Uh what else is there.. I'm sure I missed a couple garbage mini games.

Is there any real reward though to doing the activities other than titles? For me it seems titles/achievements aren't THAT sought after in Guild Wars 2 compared to Guild Wars, but I also think that without any real proper reward that may be why people in the end can't be arsed? If you added a minipet at the end of that race, that sells for as much as a legedary or even just half that, you'd see people probably try way harder and would participate way more. I think the issue isn't just if something's fun but if it gives a reward as well, if the reward is crap even those who really enjoy something may find them self doing other stuff. Just a thought.

Because they are stupid ♥♥♥♥ing minigames. They should never have been put in the game but there was a large amount of the playerbase that thought it would be soooooo much fun if ANet wasted time on implementing bar brawls and silly racing instead of making proper ♥♥♥♥ing gameplay.

I said all along that minigames are stupid as shit and that ultimately people won't play them. Now I get to say my favorite thing.

I told you so.

It's typical for MMOs that huge parts of the opening post is focused on rewarding the players into playing these games. Only a line or two are touching upon the almost-actual problem of the minigames not being fun. The actual problem is racing and barfights is not the game.
Simply put players want to kill dragons, farm gold and have adventure, not see how far some designer could push the game's scripting system.

I actually have no idea how to access them.
Now, don't get me wrong: even if I would know how to access them I most likely still wouldn't be doing them because I don't care about them, but GW2 contains a lot of things I don't care for, yet the game still teaches me how to access those things (or you simply stumble onto). Activities, on the other hand, I don't remember stumbling across them or the game guiding me to them.

I do like some of them and play them when with friends. Sanctum sprint, keg brawl and ... uh, "Hunger games" thingie are cool. But as you can see players demand rewards, minigames are not ment to have ones.

Crab Toss and Southsun Survival are highly frustrating and the latter is poorly designed (finding food is too random and if you become a wisp early... well, you can't even AFK till the end of the round). The rest may be more fun, but they quickly get boring to all but the most hard-bitten enthusiasts.

Because it gives crap rewards except a loot bag every 30 rounds, a title after completing 7 long, tedious and boring achievements, and is utterly and I mean utterly pointless and boring. I know the game as a whole is overall very unrewarding, but let's not give any legitimacy to the parts that are the least rewarding. Man, if only there were, you know, cosmetic rewards and stuff to be obtained from collecting some form of Keg Brawl currency. But that wouldn't generate any revenue.

It's okay to enjoy crap if you're willing to admit it's crap.Every patch is like ArenaNet walking out onto the stage of the International Don't Kitten Up Championship, and then proceeding to shiv itself in the stomach 30 times while screaming "IT'S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD! IT'S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD!"

Because they're minigames and the time:reward ratio is very poor. In the 10 minutes (or so) one round of the activities last you can clear CoF p1 and get yourself some gold/loot/XP. Also, while being fun, it lacks any progression. If you're in PvE you get loot, XP and achievements, same for WvW and sPvP.

If the activities gave you some Activity Points you could trade for unique cosmetic items/items with value in PvE, people would maybe care more.

The activities are always filled up, and even the less popular ones by number (Key Brawl, Crab Toss), always have a game ready. Activities are really for a niche audience, but they're always filled up.

raspberry jam, on 19 March 2014 - 08:18 AM, said:

Because they are stupid ♥♥♥♥ing minigames. They should never have been put in the game but there was a large amount of the playerbase that thought it would be soooooo much fun if ANet wasted time on implementing bar brawls and silly racing instead of making proper ♥♥♥♥ing gameplay.

I said all along that minigames are stupid as shit and that ultimately people won't play them. Now I get to say my favorite thing.

I told you so.

It's typical for MMOs that huge parts of the opening post is focused on rewarding the players into playing these games. Only a line or two are touching upon the almost-actual problem of the minigames not being fun. The actual problem is racing and barfights is not the game.
Simply put players want to kill dragons, farm gold and have adventure, not see how far some designer could push the game's scripting system.

Go online, jump into any activity. You'll be dropped in a game instantly with no lobby or waiting time.

You've missed the mark. The games are being played, sure, because more than one person is showing up to play them, but as I've said before, people don't stick around. Stay to the end of a match one day with your scoreboard open and watch all the people leave. It will happen every game because most people only go there to get their daily and get out. It isn't the game that's drawing in the players, but the achievement, hence the topic of why people don't find value in the activities past the achievement.

You've missed the mark. The games are being played, sure, because more than one person is showing up to play them, but as I've said before, people don't stick around. Stay to the end of a match one day with your scoreboard open and watch all the people leave. It will happen every game because most people only go there to get their daily and get out. It isn't the game that's drawing in the players, but the achievement, hence the topic of why people don't find value in the activities past the achievement.

I see where you're coming from, sorry about that. I could get into reasons to play, but that's all so subjective there won't be anything objective to actually discuss.

Either people are or are not playing them. Apparently they are. What else is there to say?

This is like saying no one uses IE6. Sure, there are some people who use it. But not enough to matter or support.

Edited by MazingerZ, 19 March 2014 - 03:30 PM.

It's okay to enjoy crap if you're willing to admit it's crap.Every patch is like ArenaNet walking out onto the stage of the International Don't Kitten Up Championship, and then proceeding to shiv itself in the stomach 30 times while screaming "IT'S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD! IT'S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD!"

This is like saying no one uses IE6. Sure, there are some people who use it. But not enough to matter or support.

Well I read above and it seems some people do enjoy some games like Keg Brawl so what really happened was I presumed that the concept of it being "Daily Only" is a bit extreme. It likely is. Yes, you will get daily-only players, but that cannot be the true "base" representation. It is actually the inverse of your example; we don't know how many people actually play but it is unlikely that people come in waves and droves to do this daily on a steady rate simply because unless it's the most populated server that "wave" won't last very long. It's sort of like the LS which expresses itself in all but 2 days; it takes 3 or 4 minutes to get the achievement so games should not always be available.

Well I read above and it seems some people do enjoy some games like Keg Brawl so what really happened was I presumed that the concept of it being "Daily Only" is a bit extreme. It likely is. Yes, you will get daily-only players, but that cannot be the true "base" representation. It is actually the inverse of your example; we don't know how many people actually play but it is unlikely that people come in waves and droves to do this daily on a steady rate simply because unless it's the most populated server that "wave" won't last very long. It's sort of like the LS which expresses itself in all but 2 days; it takes 3 or 4 minutes to get the achievement so games should not always be available.

At least in theory.

Even so it's only a very small part of the playerbase that does activities. Especially if you only count those that actually cares enough to return once they realize how boring they are.

To be honest, I like mini games in games if they are good. In GW2 I really like Keg Brawl and Sanctum Sprint ist quite fun, too. But there are major problems and because of them I barely played any matches at all (when I was still playing).

- Keg Brawl is full of bugs. Bugging Kegs on Flags/outside the playing field to farm points and the "far throw" (especially the far throw, so ♥♥♥♥ing annoying) destroy the game mode.
- Sanctum Sprint also has some bugs
- the rotation, whoever came up with that should be....ugh. I want to play when I want to play and not when the game decides to allow me to. It's horrible if you come home and think "oh, I would like to play a round of keg brawl now" you go to the npc and it say "sorry, keg brawl oly in two days from now, today is crab toss, you want to join :]". No, I don't want to because I don't like crab toss. That's like when your guild in GW wants to start a GvG but the game only allows RA that day. Imagine how annoying that would be.

Even so it's only a very small part of the playerbase that does activities. Especially if you only count those that actually cares enough to return once they realize how boring they are.

The question isn't whether it's a small portion but whether it produces expected returns. When designed I hardly doubt any designer of mini-games thinks to themselves "90%, GO! "; my guess is the variety and nature would probably appeal, even if free of hiccups, to maybe 2% total. So does that 2% really play or not?